Inspiration, ideas and information to help women build public speaking content, confidence and credibility. Denise Graveline is a Washington, DC-based speaker coach who has coached nearly 200 TEDMED and TEDx speakers--including one of 2016's most popular TED talks. She also has prepared speakers for presentations, testimony, and keynotes. She offers 1:1 coaching and group workshops in public speaking, presentation and media interview skills to both men and women.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

We'll be focusing on Stephanie Benoit's top three priorities during our 15-week Step Up Your Speaking online coaching sessions, and in week 1, I've asked Stephanie to share with me (and you) her three areas of focus and what she wants to accomplish, via the video above. Her three areas are:

Building up her confidence as a speaker: You may think Stephanie looks confident in her video above--I do--but confidence is all about how you feel inside.

Eye contact and connecting with the audience: Stephanie's observed how great speakers are in tune with their audiences and able to make them feel their words are targeted right to individuals in the audience. She also sees eye contact as a key to accomplishing that connection and wants to improve that skill.

Better planning: "Sometimes, I plan to plan, which can be more busy than productive," Stephanie says. She recognizes some planning is good and wants to be ready with a message she can use -- but doesn't want to be rethinking it over and over.

Now it's my turn. Time to work on a video for Stephanie to help her think about these priorities and how we can approach them over the next 15 weeks. I'll post that this week, so we'll both be ready for week 2! In the meantime, please share your constructive thoughts and encouragement for Stephanie in the comments on on The Eloquent Woman on Facebook. I'm also sharing some reading for Stephanie (and you) on the topics she outlined, to get her started.